1. Technical Field
One or more embodiments relate generally to virtual reality devices and systems and methods for providing input to a virtual reality device. More specifically, one or more embodiments relate a touch interface on a front surface of a virtual reality headset device for the purpose of providing input to the virtual reality headset device.
2. Background and Relevant Art
Virtual reality devices allow users to view media in an immersive environment. For example, virtual reality headset devices allow users to experience more complex and realistic environments by displaying three-dimensional content, or simulated three-dimensional content, within a virtual reality environment. To illustrate, many virtual reality headset devices are capable of displaying three-dimensional movies, video games, scenes, or simulations that allow users to interact with the virtual reality environment.
When interacting with a virtual reality environment, conventional virtual reality devices allow a variety of different techniques for users to provide input to interact with a virtual reality environment. Specifically, some conventional virtual reality devices allow users to provide input by way of one or more cameras capturing a user's hand gestures, such as pointing gestures, pinching gestures, or hand movements. Hand gestures, however, require the use of cameras and large amounts of computation, which can reduce battery life and increase the costs associated with the virtual reality devices. Additionally, hand recognition is often not reliable, and hardware designed to recognize hand motions frequently fail to recognize or incorrectly interpret hand motions. Moreover, users can often find the use of hand gestures as complicated, especially when there is a lack of an intuitive connection between a desired input and a corresponding hand gesture.
Alternatively, some conventional virtual reality devices allow users to provide input to interact with a virtual reality device using touch gestures on small touch interfaces. Although these types of conventional virtual reality devices allow users to interact with a touchpad or touch sensor, the types of hand or touch gestures are often limited to a small number of gestures, and thus the types of input that a user can provide is also limited. For example, conventional touch interfaces on virtual reality devices limit users to a few touch gestures, such as clicks, tap gestures or swipe gestures, requiring users to use handheld controllers for more complex input operations. Additionally, the touch gestures may not be very intuitive for users with little experience using virtual reality devices due to the positioning of the touch interfaces on the various virtual reality devices.
These and other disadvantages may exist with respect to conventional virtual reality devices and virtual reality user input techniques.